The Philippines recently launched successfully its nanosatellite Maya-2 to the International Space Station (ISS), Department of Science and Technology (DOST) Secretary Fortunato de la Peña said the Maya-2 was launched together with the nanosatellites of Japan and Paraguay at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Station in Virginia, USA through the S.S. Katherine Johnson Cygnus spacecraft.
“The DOST is very proud of this achievement. Since DOST started the Philippine Space Technology Development Program in 2014, we have already sent orbiting into space two microsatellites — Diwata-1 and Diwata-2, and the nanosatellite, Maya-1 and Maya-2,” de la Peña said in a Viber message.
The program will now transition into the leadership of the newly established Philippine Space Agency, he added.
Dela Pena said all Filipinos “should be proud of the fast progress the Philippines has made in this area considering that we started only in 2014, and there are many aspects of governance which will be assisted by space technologies.”
Launched in 2018, Maya-1 contains an Automatic Packet Radio Service Digipeater which can communicate with ham radios. It also carries two cameras that have a wide-angle and narrow-angle lens to capture images and videos for research purposes.
Maya-2, on the other hand, has additional experimental payloads, like different antenna design and other materials used for the solar panels of a cube satellite.
The DOST Secretary said Maya-2 will collect data, and is equipped with a camera for image and video capture, an Automatic Packet Reporting System Message Digipeater (APRS-DP), attitude determination and control units for active attitude stabilization and control demonstrations, Perovskite solar cells and Latchup-detection chip.
DOST’s Advanced Science & Technology Institute (ASTI) and the University of the Philippines Diliman’s Electrical and Electronics Engineering Institute, Institute of Environmental Science and Meteorology, Department of Geodetic Engineering and the National Institute of Physics, have been the implementers of these satellite development projects with assistance from three Japanese Universities, Hokkaido University, Tohoku University and Kyushu Institute of Technology. Dela Pena said the succeeding microsatellites Diwata-3 and Diwata-4 and succeeding nanosatellites are now in various stages of development.